


The Leggy Dame

by winterkill



Series: Dark in the city, night is a wire [1]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Gen, Geralt the hard-boiled witcher, and shithead pre-teen Ciri, in a 1930s-style Novigrad, with freelance journalist Dandelion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:41:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22340470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterkill/pseuds/winterkill
Summary: The man gapes at Geralt and shouts, “You’re Geralt of Rivia! I came here to find you!”The arachnomorph must not have found the man's voice as grating as Geralt does; the damn monster only strung his legs up. He could still talk and wave around the camera in his hand."How the fuck do you know me?""You're famous! The White Wolf!"
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Dark in the city, night is a wire [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1608151
Comments: 10
Kudos: 144





	The Leggy Dame

**Author's Note:**

> WELL, I said I'd write more Witcher fic! This is the first in a series of interlinked one-shots. Geralt and Yennefer will be the endgame pairing.

Geralt and Ciri have a morning routine.

She’s often asleep by the time Geralt returns, so he leaves all the job contracts out on the kitchen table for her to sift through over breakfast. He feels bad for taking her in and leaving her a latchkey kid. Geralt told Calanthe, though, that he would come for Ciri to keep her safe if there was a need.

Calanthe told him to fuck off, and Geralt relented. He hadn’t expected Calanthe to die, and for her final words to her granddaughter to be _find Geralt of Rivia._

Ciri _had_ found him--covered in dirt with only a backpack of belongings to her name--and insinuated herself into every inch of his tiny, shitty flat. She leaves dinner on the table for him every night when she goes to bed, and doesn’t bitch when Geralt enrolls her in school.

 _And_ she picks his jobs for him.

Geralt would _never_ admit it, but Ciri picks contracts better than he does.

“This one isn’t worth enough crowns,” she waves the slip of paper at him before discarding it to the floor, “It’ll take you all night, and they say the monster is in the sewers. So you’ll be smelly _and_ poor.” Ciri wrinkles her nose.

He takes a bite of cereal, fucking boring bran flakes, and lets her continue.

“ _This_ one says half the pay’s upfront,” Ciri hands it to him, “It’s a striga, though, so you’ll have to wait until the full moon to kill it. We can live on the upfront half for a while.”

_Fuck, Calanthe really did raise the girl._

Geralt takes the paper, “Done. Pick two more.”

The second contract Ciri chooses is banal, but easily to accomplish. She’s about to pick a third when one catches Geralt’s eye, “How about this one?”

“The pay is _shit_.”

“But the monster is easy.”

An arachnomorph terrorizing a shitty neighborhood, inhabited mostly by non-humans. Ciri is right about the pay, but it seems like a good deed. The job was the kind Gerart found himself doing at least once a week--a small-time gig, with little pay, concerning a monster-of-the-week that ate some housewife’s yapping dog.

Once, long ago, when Geralt first left Kaer Morhen, he thought he was entering the word to do good deeds.

That’s not how _anything_ fucking works.

Ciri rolls her eyes.

“It’s eating people’s pets,” Geralt continues, “what if it eats a kid next?”

“Then the person who puts out the contract will probably pay a higher fee next time.”

* * *

Ciri doesn’t come on the job with him, but Geralt imagines her commentary well enough that she might as well have. As she predicted over breakfast, the intel on the contract is _shit_. After a half-hour of wandering in a circle, Geralt _finally_ finds the address of the person who posted the job.

The woman _is_ a human--portly, in a flowered dress and clutching a tiny dog.The apartment behind her is so cluttered with shit that Geralt theorizes the arachnomorph’s den could be _inside_.

“Hello,” he starts, holding up the paper, “I was wondering if you had any more information.”

The woman looks warily at the two swords on his back, then at the wolf school medallion hanging from his chest. Witchers are rare, and getting rarer yearly, but she _literally_ asked for a witcher.

“It looked like a _huge_ spider,” the woman points to the right down the hallway of the building, “We saw it out there last evening.”

Geralt knows, bone deep, that he won’t get any more out of the woman, so he thanks her and closes the door behind him. _It’s my fucking fault, for assuming she’d be more useful in person._ He’s tracked a thousand monsters, though, so he follows where the woman pointed, down a stairwell, and has to kick a door open to get to the alley.

The ancient bestiary at Kaer Morhen floats through Geralt’s mind as he stalks down the alley. _Post-Conjunction, but old. Lethal. Likes to dwell in caves._ There’d been a newer addition, scrawled by someone else’s hand. _Much diminished in urban environmental. Likes sewers, alleys, and dumpsters. Only lethal if you’re really green or just suck._

He’s looking for a web, or some discarded carcasses of rats or cats.

The problem with the alleyways in Novigrad is they all look the fucking same. Geralt turns a corner and could be back at his useless informant’s building, for all he knows. It’s all trash, and shit, and muck; Ciri will _shriek_ if he leaves his boots on after wading through this.

Some bones crunch under his boots, so he follows that.

There’s a bit of web clinging to a drainpipe dangling from a building. _I wonder how long_ that’s _been broken. A testament to infrastructure--or lack thereof._

A better sign, though.

As he wanders into the labyrinth of alleyways, Geralt relies more on his enhanced witcher senses--the lighting is low, and he listens for the scraping of insect legs, or the scurrying of other animals. 

After another ten minutes of that bullshit, he mumbles to himself, "Ciri was fucking right about this."

Then, he hears a distinctly human scream.

* * *

The man is strung up between two fire escapes, and is very, _very_ noisy. Geralt vaults over a dumpster in chase, and lands smack in front of the web. 

The arachnomorph scurries up the side of the building and out of sight. _Fuck._ Now, he’ll have to scale the building if he has any hope of getting the measly reward. The reward isn’t enough crowns for a week’s worth of groceries--it’s just enough for an extra beer or two to help Geralt take the edge off the shit that was his day. The witcher mutagens were great, _except_ when he wanted to get wasted.

Then, they were _expensive._

The man gapes at Geralt and shouts, “You’re _Geralt of Rivia!_ I came here to find you!”

The arachnomorph must not have found the man's voice as grating as Geralt does; the damn monster only strung his legs up. He could still talk and wave around the camera in his hand.

"How the fuck do you know me?"

"You're famous! The White Wolf!"

Geralt rubs his hand over his face.

“How the _fuck_ did you get even strung up like that?”

"By a _big_ spider," the man yells, "which was, frankly, _terrifying."_

"I know what did it," Geralt growls, "what I want to know his _why_ you're even here."

The man tries to take a picture, and his camera nearly slips and lands in the muck below him. Instead, he manages to snap a picture; Geralt is profoundly disappointed.

"Take another one, and I'll break the camera and leave you there."

"No!" the man yowls, "I saw you take out the job at the bar. I wanted to meet you, so I followed you."

"That was fucking stupid of you."

"It was!"

Because he's a nice, good citizen, Geralt takes the steel sword off his back and slices through the webbing. The idiot falls to the ground, rolling so the camera is protected and getting covered in fuck-knows-what on the ground.

Geralt starts walking away, glancing upward to the roofs to look for a place to climb.

"I'm Dandelion."

"I don't care."

"I'm a freelance journalist."

"That means you're nosy," Geralt starts walking, "And it's going to get you killed."

Dandelion starts following. "But you saved me."

"And if I hadn't been here?"

He shrugs, and it tells Geralt _a lot_ about the idiot's sense of self-preservation 

"I've heard so much about you."

"Neat."

"You need someone to make you famous," Dandelion gets in front of Great and bars his path, walking backwards. "You're Novigrad's friendly neighborhood monster slayer!"

"I don't want to be famous."

"But you do good deeds!"

"...For money."

* * *

By the end of the night, Dandelion is _covered_ in dirt, and Geralt has, begrudgingly, saved his life-- _twice_. Once from falling to his death, and a second from an elf that tries to mug them. Geralt knocks him out and leaves a handful of crowns that he can't spare in his pocket.

"That was kind of you," Dandelion says.

"He's just trying to survive," Geralt shrugs, "People get stupid when they're desparate."

From somewhere, Dandelion whips out a notepad and starts scribbling, "Can I quote that?"

"...Can I stop you?"

Dandelion just grins.

Several times, Geralt tries to lose him by climbing into a rooftop: Dandelion is tenacious and strangely agile, though. He scales fire escapes and even makes the small leaps between buildings.

When they finally _do_ find the arachnomorph, Geralt yells at Dandelion to stand the hell back.

"I don't fancy being strung up again! The lady needs to be _quite_ a bit prettier before I'll entertain that."

Geralt doesn't even dignify that with a response. 

He _isn't_ a green witcher, so the arachnomorph goes down with little fanfare. The flash on Dandelion's camera goes off several times--Geralt, spitefully, hopes they're _all_ blurry. The last shot, where Geralt rams his sword through the creatures head, is _definitely_ useable. 

There's _a lot_ of flashes as he pulls the sword out.

"You're so _cool!"_ Dandelion screeches from a few feet back. "That's my cover shot."

_Don't break his camera. Don't do it._

By the time they make their way out of the alleyways and back to the main drag, it’s late enough that Geralt feels like letting Dandelion wander home alone is sending him to his demise.

"I'll be fine," Dandelion waves his hand dismissively, "I was _born_ on the streets."

 _He'll be dead in an alley in the morning._ A man that foppish shouldn't wander around after midnight. 

Geralt _hates_ what he's offering before the words leave his mouth, "I have a couch, but you're _gone_ at first light."

"This will add _so_ many great details to my story. The intimate world of Geralt of Rivia."

 _On second thought, maybe I'll let him wander into traffic_.

* * *

Ciri, who shouldn't be awake this late even if tomorrow isn't a school day, thinks the entire situation is _hilarious_.

"I'm a child, Geralt," she teases from where she's seated at the kitchen table, "You can't just bring home strangers. Is he your type?"

"No," Geralt grumbles, "He's too fucking annoying."

"You love me already."

"I don't."

"You will when I make you famous," Dandelion claps his hands, "Women will flock to you."

Ciri sizes up Dandelion, "I have a sword; I think I could take him."

Silently, but proudly, Geralt agrees with Ciri. Instead, he says, "Can you get him a pillow or something? Maybe a towel?"

"I didn't know you had a daughter," Dandelion says when Ciri leave the room. 

"She's not; I just took her in."

"Geralt of Rivia: fierce witcher by day, loving daddy by night." Dandelion sweeps his hand out in front of him as he speaks like he's imagining the headline.

"I never said you could write anything."

Dandelion visibly pouts.

“And do _not_ mention Ciri; I'm doing my damnedest to give her a normal childhood."

He looks at the table, where Ciri had been studying a book of blade oil recipes. _Well, I never said it was working._

Ciri returns with a blanket, pillow, spare clothes and a towel; she drops them on the table. "You smell like a dumpster…"

"Dandelion, my lady," he bows with a flourish that makes Geralt scoff audibly.

Ciri _giggles,_ "Shower before you ruin our couch with your funk."

* * *

At least three trains have run since dawn by the time Geralt pries himself out of bed, showers, and walks the ten steps to the kitchen. Ciri, with her youthful energy, is already awake and making breakfast.

Dandelion is sitting at the table taking fucking _notes._ He's wearing his own clothes, but thankfully they're clean.

"What the fuck?"

"Young Cirilla is divulging your secrets."

_"Traitor."_

"What, you need the press, right? If you're famous, you can demand a higher rate, and we can eat something other than beans."

" _Fine,"_ Geralt leans back in his chair, "Sell me out for a song."

Ciri sticks out her tongue, but passes Geralt pancakes and bacon on a plate. It's unfairly good, and much better than he could manage. He sits, eats, and watches as Ciri tells Dandelion a host of details he wishes she wouldn't.

_Well, fuck._

* * *

A week later, across town at the Novigrad chapter of the Lodge of Sorceresses, Sabrina Glevissig is laughing into her hand.

"Can you cease that?" Yennefer snaps, closing her spellbook, "Some of us are trying to be productive."

Since their schoodays at Aretuza, Yennefer had _never_ liked Sabrina. Her mere presence in the room incenses her, nevermind her voice. She'll be here for two more weeks, at minimum, and Yennefer can _hear_ Philippa telling her to put up with it.

"Come see, and you might laugh, too," Sabrina counters.

Because _surely_ whatever Sabrina's looking at isn't funny, Yennefer wants to know just how poor her former classmate's sense of humor is. She gets up and peers over Sabrina's shoulder where she's lounging.

Sabrina's gauzy dress leaves little to the imagination, especially from above. _I can see her breasts entirely._ That's not something Yennefer is interested in, so she looks to the newspaper Sabrina is holding.

The black and white photo on the cover features a man standing above what appears to be a giant spider, sword impaled through its head. Yennefer can't tell the color of the man's hair, but she'd guess it's white.

 _A witcher_ , she thinks, _a special one._

"He's handsome," Sabrina twitters.

"And that's funny?"

"No, Yenna," Sabrina uses the nickname from their youths, "what's funny is the title.”

The picture had drawn Yennefer's eyes away from the text. It reads "Geralt of Rivia, the White Wolf, Slays the Leggy Dame."

Sabrina looks up at her smugly, and Yennefer turns her head, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of seeing her laughter.

"Sabrina, go do something productive."

**Author's Note:**

> Come bother me on tumblr @kurikaesu_haru!


End file.
